Pedro Argüelles Morán
Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo has published an extraordinary interview with independent journalist Pedro Argüelles Morán, one of 11 prisoners of conscience still in jail despite ostensibly being covered by a deal between Spain, the Catholic Church and the Castro dictatorship for their release. In the interview, Argüelles describes what the origins of his activism, the events leading to his arrest in 2003 and what he will do if and when he is released.
Here's an excerpt, in which Argüelles describes living conditions in prison:
Claudia Cadelo: The Cuban jails are unpresentable. The rapporteur for torture and ill-treatment was unable to visit Cuba last year because the Cuban government would not allow it. Tell me about your life in prison, the journalist behind bars, how you managed to hold onto your morals and principles in such terrible conditions.
Pedro Argüelles: I always speak for myself and also my brothers, but in this case for myself: I am very convinced of what I'm doing and since I began this fight in 1992 I knew everything that I was exposing myself to. I knew the risks I would run and the sacrifices that I would have to make. They could expel me from my workplace. They would monitor me and I would be declared an official non-person for denouncing human rights violations. Because Cuba is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In here we live in appalling conditions, incredible overcrowding, poor nutrition and medical care. The snitching -- speaking in popular terms -- is enormous, the police informers are in the thousands. I am constantly observed, there are many eyes on me because every time there is a violation of human rights I investigate and denounce it, at the risk of what might happen.
To work and write in prison is not easy. Life here is hard: this is not a day care center or a school in the countryside, nor an urban school. It’s a prison with a series of psychedelic elements, psychiatric cases, mentally retarded, dangerous people who have murdered, raped, who have committed all sorts of crimes. People who will never leave prison. It’s a social dump and you’re forced to live with it. There are, of course, normal people, good people who never should have come to prison or who were punished excessively for some nonsense.
All the time the police tell you what to do, who you can talk to, who you can meet. But we have to carry on even though the environment is hostile.
The sanitary conditions are appalling. I am in a cubicle with room for two people and there are six people here, there are two triple bunks. The bathrooms are holes in the ground and we get water twice a day. The water isn’t drinkable and it’s for everything: drinking, bathing, cleaning.
Read the whole thing, in English or en español.
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